StarOffice Dropped From Google Pack 135
Barence writes "Sun's StarOffice suite has been mysteriously dropped from the Google Pack of free software. The office suite has been axed without any warning or explanation on the Google site. Is Google trying to drive more people towards its own online suite of office applications? Or has it been stung into action by Steve Ballmer's recent comment that Microsoft Office faces stronger competition from StarOffice than it does Google Docs and Spreadsheet?"
staroffice? (Score:5, Interesting)
was google PAYING sun for (the commercially licensed) staroffice? perhaps this is just the first step in replacing staroffice with (the free) openoffice to eliminate that (unnecessary) expense.
note that staroffice 8 is also over three years old (derived from openoffice 2.0), compared to openoffice 3, which was recently released... google could simply be moving to openoffice to stay more current with the software.
but i wouldn't put it past 'em to be removing it completely in order to drive users to their (less capable) web applications; as the article suggests. if they do not actually replace staroffice with another offline equivalent (e.g. openoffice), though, there may be some user backlash.
Well, the important thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
is that we begin right away with the baseless speculation about which of many conspiracies is responsible for this omission. God forbid someone email someone at Google, or wait until they make a blog post or something.
Re:It's obvious.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's because staroffice is slow and a resource (Score:3, Interesting)
Modern industry is held together by custom scripts.
I use a text editor, sc and awk; YMMV. Most people seem to use Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office which discounts your theory entirely.
Wrong although I can't disagree completely, Vista does suck!
Seems fairly obvious... (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe Google are removing a competitor to their own office applications because... they are a competitor to their own office applications.
In order for Google to make any kind of inroads into Microsoft's customer base, they have to convince people that online apps are just as viable as their offline counterparts. So providing an offline office suite in the Google Pack - ostensibly to keep the doubters happy - might be considered by some to be an admission that Google Docs won't do the job.
Re:staroffice? (Score:5, Interesting)
What Google should do (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How were they giving it away in the first place (Score:2, Interesting)
To add to that, if you are a 'student or work in Education' you can also download it from free here: http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/edu/solutions/staroffice.html#StarOffice [sun.com]
Microsoft Signs MSN Toolbar Deal With Sun (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft Signs MSN Toolbar Deal With Sun [pcworld.com]
Google caught wind of a Microsoft/Sun deal.
The word processors. (Score:3, Interesting)
I used Microsoft Word, 7 years ago. It was much more powerful then than Open Office is now. Google Docs is hopeless; it can't even read a sophisticated .doc file correctly.
Word can do things like a color gradient side border with rotated text that are hideously difficult or impossible with other editors.
I'm trying to make a sharp-looking resume. I am continually frustrated in my efforts by Open Office. I can't put text where I want it, I can't put horizontal lines where I want them, I can't get font sizes to print as they look on the screen (or to print or display the same size as Word prints and displays the same TrueType font.) I'm going to have to buy the Microsoft product to get the results I want, and that displeases me. Some employers require resumes in Word format, and the Open Office .doc format output doesn't always work.